Cradle and All
by rachg82
Summary: This fic fulfills a topic I always wanted to see addressed during the 7th season, but never did: Brennan becoming a mom, with all its implied joyfulness, while grieving her own.


**Author's Note** : I'm not a mother myself, but I lost my own mom three & a half years ago, and her birthday is this Monday. I dedicate this story to her memory & to everyone else out there who knows how it feels.

* * *

 _Mama_

Two lilting syllables - one heavy word.

Brennan freezes,  
her back to her baby, her right hand  
reaching casually up for a dish.

(Had she just heard what she thought she'd just heard?)

Her child had just said her very first word.

 _Her child_.

It was still almost a foreign concept,  
parenthood in the same universe as her  
and her former identity.

She'd previously considered herself an expert on the subject,  
mind practically overflowing with knowledge on all the international mores  
of motherhood,  
yet it was now all too clear  
that she had so much more to learn  
and no one to teach her.

Her own mother had been present  
for Temperance's first fifteen years on this planet,  
of course,  
but that experience had been viewed through the eyes of a distracted daughter -  
only a child, herself.

She had no way of knowing  
her mother's thoughts, beliefs, or fears.  
She certainly couldn't copy what she'd witnessed growing up, either;  
her mother had been living a lie the entire time,  
and neither young Christine or old Christine  
perceived the world as Brennan did.

As shameful as it felt,  
Bones sometimes wasn't sure she would relate to her own offspring  
as she grew older.  
She was worried they could only grow further apart.

Booth and Angela both reassured her-  
every time they sensed her famed confidence falter-  
that the fact that she cared to begin with  
was what mattered most  
in the end.

"The really bad mothers don't worry so much about being bad mothers," they'd say.

But she didn't want to just not be a bad mother;  
she wanted to be a good one.

A perfect one,  
if she was really being honest with herself.

Mediocrity had never been a satisfactory goal anywhere  
or at any time in her life.

She'd always been strictly black  
and white,  
all or nothing -  
a perfectionist, through & through.

She'd only recently begun to accept the gray.  
At times, it still frightened her.

She'd never pretended  
to be good with change  
or the recognition  
of not being 100% in control.

There was no road map where she was headed.  
Many people argued that they'd created the first-ever compass,  
but they were as lost as she was.

When two dissenting people both think they're right,  
one of them has to be wrong.

Or was that just her being black-and-white again?

Either way, she'd rejected her fears  
and embraced motherhood with all her heart,  
imprisoning her stuffed, trembling spirit behind the strong, curved bars  
of her protective rib cage;  
even Booth, with all his good intentions,  
kept losing the key.

Brennan was still only beginning to realize  
that, while she was safely guarding herself from outside threats  
and judgment,  
she was also holding her own emotional freedom hostage.

Sometimes she would secretly catch herself reaching for the phone,  
as if she could call her dead mother  
and ask her opinion  
or tell her how many times her granddaughter had laughed that day.

It was utterly ridiculous,  
wasn't it?

(Bones hadn't yet shared this information with anyone.  
She may no longer have been impervious,  
but that didn't mean she wanted to appear weak  
or in some way irrational  
and unbalanced.)

Her actions made no sense,  
at least not the kind of sense  
she was used to making.

Logically, she knew of triggers, and even post-partum depression,  
but she was operating for once without logic's steady hand,  
totally unaware.

She couldn't, wouldn't  
allow herself the selfish indulgence  
of not joyfully cherishing every moment  
of her young daughter's life.

Besides, her mother had been gone for decades.  
Hadn't she already grieved her passing years before?  
This was just pointless & self-pitying.

Brennan had forgotten  
that mourning follows its own time-table for every person.  
It doesn't care when deep-seeded yearning  
or soul-sucking sadness would be more convenient for you.

Anyway, it turned out that nothing could have prepared her  
for standing in her kitchen, cup in hand,  
ecstatic & weeping  
at the same time.

What possible shade of gray was _this_?

* * *

"So how is motherhood treating you so far?"

Bones looked up with a start.  
She'd been admittedly caught up in her own thoughts,  
face bent over the remains of some poor woman's fractured life.

Cam was standing in front of her,  
eyes expectant & waiting.  
It would seem she had an agenda.

People usually did.

"It's fine. Christine is progressing normally."  
She turned back to the body.

"And how are you progressing?"

This time, Brennan didn't know how to respond. No one else had ever asked her that,  
not Booth, and not even Angela.  
She put the skull down, giving her boss her full attention.  
"I'm not sure what you mean."

Cam smiled gently.  
"I mean, how are you doing learning the ropes of motherhood  
when you, yourself, are motherless?  
I know it's not easy."

She paused a moment before continuing. "Have you given yourself permission yet?"

Bones furrowed her brow, puzzled. "Permission for what?"

"...To cry."

She laughed a little too brusquely. "I don't need permission for that."

Cam leaned her head to one side & sighed. "Don't you? I'm sorry - I know it's none of my business, but I just wish I'd had someone ask me that question when I became a mom. When Michelle first came back into my life, I found myself suddenly missing my own mother more than I ever reasonably could've expected. It took me quite a while to realize that feeling sad & feeling happy didn't have to be mutually exclusive. I imagine that lesson is even more difficult for you."

She wanted to respond, to thank her,  
but her words were tangled in her throat.  
Her head hung ever-so-slightly, weighed down by the gravity of their shared loss.

Cam waved her hand in the air as if to clear it. "Anyway, forget I said anything. It's not my place."

Brennan finally looked up & found her voice. "No, thank you. I won't forget it."

They gave each other a nod of respect, and Cam returned to her office.  
Neither was a fan of prolonging sentimentality longer than necessary.

As if all at once, Angela appeared at her side, frowning.  
"Hey, Bren, you okay? You look like you're about to cry."

She smiled. "Yes, I think I am."

"Okay? Or about to cry?"

"Both."

Angela appeared confused, but accepted her answer without argument. She remembered how hormonal she'd been in the months following her own child's birth.

Brennan stepped back from the victim, turning to face her best friend.  
She too was a motherless mother.  
"You want to go grab some coffee & talk?"

"Okay, now I'm really concerned. You want to actually stop working & _talk_?"

She laughed. Angela had a point. "Yes. Will you join me?"

"Always. But if you turn out to be a pod person, you're on your own."

Hodgins was just walking up to the platform & had overheard the tail-end of their conversation. "Dr. Brennan's a pod person now? Does this mean I can finally run experiments on her?"

Angela gave him an affectionate shove as they passed. "Ignore him."

(Maybe gray didn't have to be so scary, after all.)

 **Fin**


End file.
